Since everyone influential in Hollywood is around my age now (sorry Hollywood Harry), now is the time for '80s and '90s nostalgia. That's why we are seeing so many reboots, updates, and remakes of beloved series and movies we knew from the 1980s.

Unfortunately, most have them have sucked, with today's writers/producers not completely understanding what everyone liked about the originals.

Among the many misses (Ghostbusters, Head of the Class, One Day at a Time, National Lampoon's Vacation, Punky Brewster, Saved by the Bell, among others), we've had the occasional hit (Cobra Kai).

Now comes Quantum Leap, which I have some optimism can be good. I was a huge fan of the original Quantum Leap. In general, I have always liked a good time travel story, and the entire theme of the show -- a man forced to leap through time into other people's bodies, in order to fix mistakes of the past -- made for endless possibilities.

The main character, Sam Beckett (played by Scott Bakula), was a physicist who built a time machine which allowed people to travel within their own lifetime, but it was never fully functional. Upon the cutoff of funding, he stepped into the machine itself to test it, and was inexplicably forced into 'leaping" into other people's bodies at various points throughout his lifetime, but never into his own.

The creator, Donald Bellisario, was born in 1935, so he was naturally interested in depicting reverse time travel to the '50s and '60s. That's where most of the show was focused. The Beckett character was born in 1953, meaning that all of the show's time travel took place between 1953 and the show's run from 1989-1993. However, Bellisario was already in his mid-50s by the show's run, and seemed to have little interest in the '80s. There were just six of the 97 episodes taking place in the '80s. This disappointed me, as by that time of my life (1989-93), most of my memories were from the 1980s.

This updated version is not a reboot, but rather a continuation, taking place 30 years after the last one ended. Scott Bakula is not involved. Bellisario, now 87, is still involved, but is going to be less hands-on than the first time around.

Perhaps Hollywood Harry can tell us more about what Bakula isn't involved. He was apparently invited but turned it down.


Here is the trailer:




The main character, taking the place of Sam, is an Asian guy named Ben. Unlike Sam, he has no memory of his own past.

The hologram "Al" character is now a woman who both worked with him and was his girlfirend. However, she doesn't reveal to him that they were dating when she appears to him in the past.

The first leap is to 1985.

I do have some concerns about the show:

1) Will it take itself too seriously? One charming thing about Quantum Leap is that it had Sam leaping into ordinary people solving their individual problems. He wasn't saving the world or doing anything spectacular -- just trying to fix whatever situation the person he was occupying got themselves into. This trailer shows him as an astronaut and certain other high importance positions. I hope they didn't forget to put him in ordinary situations and small towns, as those tended to be the most interesting.

2) Will there be a woke message to the whole thing? I'm aware that the original Quantum Leap had some 1990s-era virtue signaling itself, but it was only occasional. I hope this doesn't get destroyed by wokeness. The fact that they felt it necessary to turn the main character Asian and the secondary character female is already a bit concerning -- as if they're feeling required to satisfy the Hollywood woke crew. At least I'm not seeing token gay or trans characters (yet).

3) Will there be too much action and not enough character development and dialog?

I guess we will have to see.